London
by Thessaly
Summary: A dreamer gets a unique perspective on the Endless out and about.  Too long for a drabble, too short for anything else.


**(A/N)** _This one's been sitting on my computer for a while, and I was feeling mournful, so I decided to post it. I'd like some feedback, since I don't do this type of writing very often. I'm not completely happy with the end, but I rarely am. So nothing happens? So what. I don't really have a good explanation for it right now, I'm afraid. It struck me as right after a night of (reluctant) clubbing. The Endless belong to Neil Gaiman. London belongs to the Londoners._

London during the day crawls with tourists, eager to "do" the city according to their guidebooks. They get on the nerves of the Londoners and vice versa. Tourists…can't live with them, can't live without them. It is a city of history: the world of Shakespeare and Samuel Pepys and all the statesmen and kings and others. At night it changes. A strange observation, given that Oxford Street at 2 P.M. looks the same as Oxford Street at 2 A.M. But true all the same. At the Marble Arch tube stop, a busker hums mournfully; a couple kiss desperately on the sidewalk; a girl in high heeled shoes a gold cashmere sweater walks and talks even faster on her mobile, the garble of accent out of place with the measured Georgian elegance of Kensington. A dark-haired young man, for the moment idle, sits in Trafalgar Square and feeds the pigeons, ignoring and ignored by his surroundings.

We're at a club in Soho. It doesn't matter which one; they are all the same. This isn't the posh Penthouse in Leicester Square, just a normal club with a 5 quid cover charge. Desire loves a club. Walk in, fight your way to the bar. With the kick of a shot of Tequila still ringing in your brain, walk downstairs to the _real_ club. Upstairs is for the drinkers and the oldies music; down here, it's real dancing. It's dark, of course. Or at least the dance floor is; light comes from the bar and from the areas where you can grab a table and sit with your mates. The dance floor could be hell, with the bodies writhing in agony in the dark, lit only by the occasional wheeling lights. Or it may be a purely human invention; after all, pleasure is involved. In the thick of the crowd, there is a platform backed by mirrors, and on the platform are dancers. See the one in the middle? A body dressed in trousers of a masculine cut with a matching jacket, moving with a sinuous grace, feline and female. The hair is short and dark and slicked back, the eyes and face cat-like and androgynous. The dancer moves as though it were an expression of the music, more coordinated and graceful than any of the other alcohol-sodden dancers. Sometimes dancing with women, sometimes with men, sometimes alone. It doesn't matter; surrounded by mirrors, illuminated by light and fog, Desire controls its followers in this place.

Will you find the others here too? Maybe. Over there, where four teenage girls, too young to really be in here, take shots of Malibu at the bar, laughing and quarreling over the bills. Or there, where a diminutive Indian girl with an ID card pinned to her shirt and a whistle between her lips, sells shots to three drunken Hispanics, the wild colors of the shot tubes like the experiments of a mad scientist gone wrong. There is a dancer near them, who looks intrigued by the colours of the shots, graceless, awkward, watching people more than dancing. Delirium belongs here too; you'll see her when you have too many shots warm and fizzy in your belly and the strobe lights echo in your brain and the glowsticks leave angry pathways on the back of your eyes. She is there, somewhere, in the fog and haze and madness of the club.

The other four wait outside. Watch for them as you come out at 4 A.M., once the dancing stops and they've called last orders. A fat homeless women, nearly naked, sits by a dumpster, a rat at her feet investigating the litter. You'll see her as the fire in your brain wears off and you realize you've spent half your paycheque and your girlfriend is waiting for you at the flat. It's easy for Despair to find her own here, in the masses of the tired drunkards, abruptly let down by their pillow of alcohol at the ungodly hour of four in the morning.

There's one by the door, see him? Near where the overworked staff, envious of their idle patrons, drag their loads of indescribable garbage. A tall man in a black trench coat, hands dug deep into the pockets. His face is pale, his hair a dark anemone explosion. His eyes are in shadows, but sometimes, if you look, you might see a glimmer in the pits of the eyesockets, very far away. With the craggy pale face, you would take him for a patron – he seems young enough – but he is not. Merely a spectator, as always. He knows his own here too as he watches his dreams scamper about the tired feet of the spectators. A young woman in trousers too tight for her and a spangly top staggers out. She will go to her job as a secretary on Monday, underpaid and overworked, but right now, not today or tonight, but some time in between that only Dream knows, she is thinking of the man she met on the dance floor and kissed and kissed until the lights wheeled round her head and the music went through her oversprayed hair to her feet like lighting striking home, and she can dream whatever she wants about him. Not all Dream's creatures are kind, of course. The man over there in the green shirt with one sleeve missing is afraid of the monsters in the alleyway.

Desire leans in the doorway, watching as they leave his temple, and Delirium crouches beside him, unaware and playing with a glowstick. In their own way, the Endless bid the people good night. Watch the teenage girls, the ones taking shots earlier. One of them stumbles out into the road, fairly empty at 4 A.M., but not completely. She falls on the sidewalk and her equally drunk friends are obviously confused. Behind them, another teenager stands watching; another patron, perhaps. She is also pale, with black hair and pale skin, the face cheerful in spite of the goth look. A black tank top, black jeans, cowboy boots. A silver ankh around her neck, and black kohl under her eyes. You'll only see her for a second, if you look closely. She is not a patron, and she is occupied with the unconscious teenager. A tragedy? Perhaps. It is her job, and unlike some of her siblings, Death mixes compassion with her duties.

Destiny is harder to find. He is in his garden, of course, but if you were to float above the scene to take in everything: three teenagers and an ambulance, a drunken Hispanic, a girl in a spangled top getting into a cab, which then heads towards Southwark, you might get the perspective of Destiny as he passes, in some shadow or another, over Soho and Regent Street and Bond Street and Hyde Park and Southwark and the Docks and the myriad tube stops and Marylebone and the Tower and Buckingham Palace. From that perspective, you can probably see Destiny.

And then you realize you're actually watching it all from the top of a tower in a castle which may be at the heart of the Dreaming. And as you notice this, and your companion who watches you expressionlessly, you wake up. Because you have to. Because you don't really get a choice. And outside is a London day, with fitful rain. You put on your heels and pashmina and stop at the closest _Pret_ for coffee on the way to work. Same thing everyday – damn tourists, sodding congestion charge, bloody traffic. But if you look hard enough, you can see the Endless. Even during the day.


End file.
